American Telephone and Telegraph, Inc.

(AT&T) One of the largest US
telecommunications providers, also noted for being the birthplace
of the Unixoperating system and the C and C++ programming
languages.

AT&T was incorporated in 1885, but traces its lineage to
Alexander Graham Bell and his invention of the telephone in
1876. As parent company of the former Bell System, AT&T's
primary mission was to provide telephone service to virtually
everyone in the United States. In its first 50 years, AT&T
established subsidiaries and allied companies in more than a
dozen other countries. It sold these interests in 1925 and
focused on achieving its mission in the United States. It
did, however, continue to provide international long distance
service.

The Bell System was dissolved at the end of 1983 with AT&T's
divestiture of the Bell telephone companies.

AT&T split into three parts in 1996, one of which is Lucent
Tecnologies, the former systems and equipment portion of AT&T
(including Bell Laboratories).